Allen, William A. (William Alonzo)

About the author

William Alonzo Allen (1848–1944) was an American frontiersman, writer, and self-styled ethnographer whose interest in the cultural practices of indigenous peoples led him into one of the more remote corners of the American West. Particularly notable in his repertoire is The Sheep Eaters, an account focusing on a distinct subgroup of the Shoshone tribe, sometimes called the Tukudeka or “Sheep Eaters,” who inhabited the rugged high-altitude territories of the Rocky Mountains. At a time when mainstream society often overlooked or stereotyped native groups, Allen attempted to bring a measure of respect and curiosity to his portrayals, though his perspective still bore the biases of the era.

Allen’s childhood in post–Civil War America was marked by the westward push of settlers, railroads, and adventurers seeking new land. Drawn by the call of open landscapes, he took on various roles—guide, trapper, occasional scout—gradually crossing paths with mountain-based Shoshone groups. His unique vantage fueled his written sketches, blending personal observation with handed-down lore. While lacking the rigor of modern anthropology, these writings still provide a window into the daily life of a group that faced challenges linked to limited trade access, rugged terrain, and the encroaching presence of a rapidly expanding United States.

In The Sheep Eaters, Allen described traditional subsistence patterns, such as hunting bighorn sheep in steep canyons and fashioning hides into clothing suited to alpine winters. He noted the importance of communal strategies in such a demanding environment, underscoring how these families balanced mobility with resource conservation. Delicate environmental harmony was crucial, he insisted, for ensuring bighorn herds remained viable through the seasons. He also explored spiritual and ceremonial practices as best he could, acknowledging that certain rites were off-limits to outsiders. Despite occasionally romanticizing their way of life, Allen attempted to refute the idea of such peoples as merely “primitive,” highlighting instead their ingenuity and resourcefulness in a harsh setting.

Although modern scholarship has revised or expanded upon many of Allen’s observations—some of which were inevitably filtered through the lens of a white frontiersman—his writings remain among the relatively few first-hand, if informal, sources documenting groups like the Sheep Eaters. Subsequent anthropologists sometimes cross-reference his anecdotes with oral histories from Shoshone descendants, finding kernels of insight that enrich contemporary understanding of high-altitude indigenous strategies. Allen’s text also illuminates the broader American fascination with Native cultures at a time when the West was being dramatically reshaped by newcomers. The Sheep Eaters serves, then, as both an artifact of frontier-era storytelling and a partial record of a little-documented group’s resilient adaptation to one of the West’s most challenging terrains.